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Sunday, July 19, 2015

Change your motivation to boost your mental potential

The author

The biological brain gives rise to the mind, a physical system. Interaction with the environment modulates the brain's energy balances. This is the basis of mental regulation via energy and information exchange. During interaction energy imbalances, so called emotions form. In turn emotions trigger actions that recover the energy neutral state of the mind. This way the environment regulates emotion forming animals (such as mammals and birds) by triggering appropriate emotions and the mind automatically produces actions, which extinguishes those emotions. Emotions integrate the mind (and the organism) seamlessly into its environment. The emotional history forms the mind's temporal landscape.

By orienting between the past and the future, the mind interprets stimulus as a binary code, an abstraction of either past or the future. The new is based on the promises and possibilities contained in unsecured, unknown situations, which can even be threatening. But they can also come with the promise of opportunities, such as food or find a mate. The past corresponds to safety and security. From mice to whales and humans, mental regulation is based on these basic mental orientations. The mental states form attitude, which are also binary: either positive or negative attitude can form. Interaction of the environmental stimulus and the mental state leads to appropriate emotions. Negative emotions are the tools of destruction, whereas positive emotions are the success generators of the mind. However, emotions form via complex, nonlinear regulation, the outcome of which cannot be easily predicted. Even positive feelings can produce emptiness and superficiality, which mitigates failure. Inversely, negative emotions can be turned around, producing mental brilliance andsuccess. This complexity gives rise to perplexing real life examples: promising young talents ending as miserable failure, and dismal beginnings that are overturned to spectacular success. This way the individual writes his own history.

Since orientation toward both future and past can give rise to either positive or negative emotions, mental orientation is a fundamental component of personal success. Goal orientation is an imaginary mental compass that moves toward the future by automatically supplying appropriate attitude in any situation. Even rats remember location clues better when working toward a goal. In
human subjects, motivation to obtain rewards reduces conflict-related
activation, thereby enhancing performance. In computer simulation studiesWissner-Gross and Freer (2013) found that goal-oriented effort was a superior method for success. Working through negative circumstances produces confidence, the mental capital for resolve and motivation toward success. Inversely, confidence permits goal oriented work in spite of problems.